Sec. Duffy: Newark Air Traffic Crisis ‘Unacceptable’

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy has indicated that while he and President Donald Trump are committed to drastically improving the infrastructure and technology at the nation’s airports, the recent incidents involving air traffic outages are “unacceptable.”

In an opinion essay written exclusively for Newsweek on Thursday, Duffy began by recalling his first day in office when a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter collided with a PSA-operated CRJ700 that was making a descent into Reagan National Airport just before 9 p.m. In total, 67 lives were lost from both aircraft — making it the deadliest crash in the U.S. since 2009.

Then on April 28 and May 9 at Newark Liberty International Airport, air traffic controllers were unable to see or talk to planes for as long as 90 seconds. The FAA facility based in Philadelphia that monitors Newark should be run with at least 38 controllers yet currently only has 22 fully certified controllers and five supervisors.

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